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Lessons from Offset 2012

I just returned from a jam-packed weekend at Offset in the lovely city of Dublin. Libeskind’s Grand Canal Theatre provided the backdrop for three days of heady talks from the likes of Sagmeister, Erik Kessels of KesselsKramer, Pentragram’s Paula Scher and Michael Beirut, Johnny Kelly, Shepard Fairey and Jessica Hische. Having had a day to digest all the discussions and ideas, here are the key themes that stood out…

Be brave and take risks

Sagmeister’s talk on challenging yourself and getting out of your comfort zone resonated with me. It was humbling to see that even Sagmeister has personal obstacles that he needs to force himself to overcome. Don’t play safe, having guts can ultimately be very rewarding.

Keep making and creating

In Paula Scher’s words: “The more you make, the more you want to do.” Give yourself a break from the computer and embrace making things with your hands.

Evolution and change are good

Johnny Kelly talked about feeling the need to grow and push his work in new directions. It was great to see people continuously experimenting and testing out new practices, processes, ways of approaching a problem, and embracing this process of discovery.

Find a balance

Balance kept getting referenced in relation to work, happiness, focus. This needs fine-tuning throughout your life, and it seemed that the speakers were all aware of this to varying degrees.

Pursue your passions

Scheduling time for things that you are passionate about was a re-occurring theme. Not only will you feel more inspired and happy but it can inform your work and sometimes directly impact on your career. Paula Scher’s mind-boggling map paintings started out as something she did in her spare time -they’ve now become another income for her. She works at Pentagram from Monday to Thursday and paints Friday to Sunday.

Find inspiration in things outside of your discipline

This leads on from the last point – fuel your creativity with stuff outside of your discipline. Taking an active interest and engagement in wider things is important. Shepard Fairey was extremely passionate about people needing to constantly critique the world around them.

More successful women in the creative industries

We need more intelligent, successful women like Paula Scher talking about design and creativity. There were 24 main speaker slots and only three women in the program. I don’t think this was intentional programming from Offset but we really need to address this imbalance and give inspiring women a platform.

Hard-work

It takes hard work and dedication to be successful – generally there isn’t an epiphany moment and one idea that gets you to the top. It was clear that most of the speakers had a slightly obsessive, unrelenting desire to produce work and got to where they are now by determination.

Never stop learning

It’s a lesson that Jessica Hische has learnt and it’s been an important realisation for her. The more you know, the more you realise you have to learn.

Failures

Failure is a universal experience. Even inspiring creatives at the top of their game produce work that isn’t realised, they aren’t proud of, or ideas clients reject. Use these failures as an opportunity to learn and evaluate.

Be ambitious

In the words of Friends With You: “Dream gigantic because you can accomplish it!”

And so the crème de la crème was announced, with five of D&AD’s highest honour – the Black Pencil – awarded this year. From radio advertising to branding it’s a diverse selection that’s sure to get people talking. It’s great to see some of our favourite projects from the last year recognised, and some we weren’t familiar with (the brilliant radio station for dogs, for instance) being celebrated. Without further ado, here they are!Made Thought’s comprehensive rebrand of paper manufacturers G. F. Smith aimed to “better reflect the legacy, stature and future ambitions of the company,” using a new Humanist Sans typeface designed to reflect both machine printing and calligraphy. As well as creating the new identity, Made Thought has also revamped G. F. Smith’s websites.

D&AD has awarded White Pencils in a category of their own since 2013, and these recognise design and advertising projects that “demonstrate that marketing and marketing communications can be a force for good,” in the words of D&AD CEO Tim Lindsay. Four projects have been awarded the philanthropic pencils this year, two for brand and two for not-for-profit advertising and marketing communications. Here are the projects recognised this year… Lowe China used very powerful images of road traffic accident victims holding signs in the Human Traffic Sign campaign, which takes a straightforward idea and executes it brilliantly. Created as part of car client Buick’s wider road safety campaign, Human Traffic addresses the fact that one person dies every ten minutes in China – a terrifying statistic indeed.www.lowechina.com the infuriatingly catchy LEGO Movie song Everything is Awesome for good, Don’t Panic London’s video (which went viral almost instantly) showed a beautiful LEGO Arctic scene being destroyed by oil. The campaign was a protest against LEGO’s alignment with Shell, the upshot was that in July last year the toy manufacturer announced it wouldn’t be renewing its contract with the oil giant – a true success story.

The category winners for this year’s Designs of the Year have been announced, including a nod to one of our favourite projects, Marcel’s Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables campaign, which scooped the graphics category nomination. The campaign was nominated by our very own Alex Bec, and was created to champion the beauty within misshapen fruits and vegetables, which are sold at Intermarché for 30% cheaper than their more traditional-looking counterparts. The overall Design of the Year from the six category winners will be announced June, and all are on display at the exhibition alongside the other nominations (read our thoughts on it here) until 31 March 2016.This crowd-funded project develops ways to efficiently remove plastic pollution from aquatic ecosystems on a large scale.www.theoceancleanup.com university building in Santiago was designed to create “the right environment for knowledge-creation.”www.elementalchile.cl car that drives itself! No wheels, no pedals, just a button.www.googleblog.blogspot.co.uk little chips were developed by Harvard University students and use living human cells that mimic the complex tissue structures and functions of entire organs, aiming to help advance the creation of personalised medicines and aid drug discovery with lower development costs.www.wyss.harvard.edu Central St Martins graduate’s designs were chosen for their demonstration of technical skills and aesthetics, showing combinations of colour, cut and materials “with vision and confidence,” according to the Design Museum.www.thomastait.com

It’s Nice That founder and creative director Will Hudson was part of the D&AD Black Pencil jury this year. Here he is on judging one of the industry’s main awards, and why it helped change his mind about creative competitions…

People in the graphic arts world have got an infernal problem with Pick Me Up. It’s the Taylor Swift of illustration events: everyone claims they’re not into it but when it comes on the radio they know all the words and are happily singing along. My opinion on it has undulated for years, but going to the private view last night made me realise that all this time I doubted it and listened sceptically to the rumours surrounding it, I was totally wrong.